by Nancy Thayer
As she moved briskly along, she was unusually aware of the health of her body easily bearing the weight of her shoulder bag and briefcase, her skirt sliding sleekly over her long strong legs. This body that did her bidding so well—how long had it been since she’d pleasured it? Since she’d had a lover? She couldn’t remember. Automatically she received and ignored the stares of the people in the crowd who recognized her. She kept her face, partially hidden by sunglasses even on this rainy day, blank. How would it feel to lie next to Carter? She could not give in to such thoughts, not even in fantasies. She had to get control of herself.
She was in such a state of miserably determined renunciation that when she turned out of the gate into the broad terminal, she nearly plowed past a man before realizing it was Carter. He reached out for her. Grabbing her shoulders, he stopped her in her tracks.
She stared at him. “What are you doing here?”
Carter looked terrible and wonderful, simultaneously pale and shadowed, his usually immaculate clothes as rumpled as if he’d slept in them.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
Because his mind seemed to run on so many levels at once, Carter had a habit of not looking at the person he was talking to, but now his vivid blue eyes were focused right on Joanna’s face. All his energy, all his powerful intellect, was directed toward Joanna. She was mesmerized.
But he seemed to be nearly paralyzed. “Wait,” he said. “Not here.”
She let him pull her along through the crowded halls, out the automatic doors past porters and travelers and security guards, and into the nearest taxi.
“West Seventy-fifth,” he told the driver.
Joanna was even more puzzled. That was her address, not the network’s.
“What’s this all about?” she asked.
The taxi lurched forward. Carter turned to face her. “I’m afraid I’m in love with you,” he said.
For only a moment Joanna sat absorbing the shock. But it seemed so perfect, so perfectly them, that they would realize their hearts at the same time. Very gently she put her hand to Carter’s worried face. “I’m in love with you, too.”
His mouth tightened. His chin bunched up.
“This is wrong,” he said in a low, desperate voice. “I’m married. I’ve never been untrue to Blair. I don’t play around.”
A delicate trembling had overtaken Joanna. It felt like snowflakes, as light as feathers, as electric as kisses, glittering all over her skin, a radiant shimmering sensation that seemed to stem from the spot where her hand touched Carter’s face. His beautiful face. She could not believe she was touching him, and something rapturous was released inside her which told her that she had been wanting to touch him like this for a long time.
“Carter,” she whispered, “kiss me.”
In reply, he turned his face into her hand and closed his eyes and kissed the sensitive hollow of her palm. She studied Carter and saw him, not as coproducer and colleague, but as a man. She saw the sprinkling of boyish freckles across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks. She saw how with his eyes closed his thick lashes brushed his cheeks. Then he opened his eyes and looked at her as she was looking at him, a searching, greedy, naked look that nearly alarmed her with its intensity.
She thought he would kiss her mouth then. Instead, he looked away, but as he did he took her hand in both of his and held it in his lap. “Whatever happens between us, you have to understand, can’t be permanent. I won’t leave Blair, not ever. That’s just not in the realm of possibility. I loved Blair when I married her. In a way I still love her.”
Joanna nodded, spellbound, speechless.
“I’ve always been clear with her,” Carter continued, “about what I want in life and how hard I intend to work to get it. Blair’s been content to take second place. She’s given me a son, and I’ve given her a luxurious life. I don’t want to hurt her.”
When he fell silent, Joanna did not speak but merely waited. The pain of hearing Carter speak about his wife was mitigated by the warmth of his hands against hers. Jealousy was only a minor chord in the concerto of emotions playing through her: she was thrilled and even honored by Carter’s confidences.
The cab was nearing Riverside Drive. Anxiety rushed through Joanna: would Carter come into her apartment with her? Or would he decide, in spite of the longing that held them both in thrall, to stop this before it went any further? Suddenly all she cared about in the world was this man, and all she wanted was the next hour of her life.
“It’s all right,” she assured him. “I don’t want anything permanent, Carter. I’ve never wanted marriage or children. God, I could have had all that by now, if I’d wanted. I love my work—you know that. Anything more, anything private between you and me—would be just that. Private.” She bit her lip to keep from saying, “I’ll take what I can get,” but that was how she felt at the moment, desperate for him, ready to promise anything at all, for every atom in her body was humming with joy and desire, every synapse and nerve and cell was begging to be crushed close to Carter, and even her clever, rational, capable mind surrendered before her desire, like a proud tree bowing to the onslaught of a blizzard. If she could have the next hour with him, she would ask for nothing more.
The cab stopped in front of her apartment building.
“Carter, come in with me,” Joanna entreated. “Please.”
Carter stuffed some bills through the Plexiglas tray and went with Joanna.
She thought—hoped—that once inside, he would embrace her. Instead, he suggested, “Let’s have some coffee.”
“All right,” she replied. “I think I have some instant.” Tossing her briefcase on the kitchen counter, she filled a pan with water and turned on the burner. While she was measuring out the spoons of dried coffee grains, she heard Carter walk through her apartment, and then he was there in the kitchen with her, his body seeming enormous in the small room.
“You don’t have much furniture,” he remarked.
“I know. I’ve just never had the time to look for any.” Tilting her head to look up at him from under her lashes, she added in a soft voice, “I do have a bed.”
He was staring at her, entranced. “I’ve never met anyone with a place like this. If your viewers could only see your living room!”
“I do a lot of work at home. I never entertain here.” She laughed. “I never entertain. I never do anything but work!” She handed him a mug. “I don’t cook much, either,” she admitted, then proposed, sliding past him to lead the way, “Let’s go into the bedroom. It’s the only place where we can both sit.”
Joanna curled up at the head of the bed, leaning against the wall. Carter settled at the foot. He took a sip of his coffee, flinched, and said, “Too strong. Look, Joanna, I don’t know what I’m doing here. I admit I’m confused. I’ve told you I don’t want to hurt Blair, but I also don’t want to hurt you.” When she began to protest, he shook his head. “Wait. Hear me out. I’ve never felt as close to anyone in my life as I do to you. I’ve never felt such companionship. Working with you on the show is just about the best thing in my life. I don’t want to endanger that.”
Instead of reassuring him, Joanna only nodded. “I understand. I wouldn’t want to endanger the show, either.”
“For years I’ve been trying to figure out the appeal that television has for me. It seems that a man could be drawn to sailing or farming or medicine. Those things are natural. But television is so artificial. Yet I feel like I was born for it. Joanna, my work is the core of my life.”
“I know. It is for me, too.”
“I don’t know how much I have left to give to anything else, especially to a relationship with someone I respect as much as I respect you.” He studied her, his face serious. “I don’t think I can subtract my feelings for you from my feelings about my work.”
Joanna felt a smile break out over her face. “Carter,” she said, leaning toward him, “those are the most romantic w
ords I’ve ever heard.” Setting her mug on the bedside table, she reached out and took Carter’s from him and set it on the table, too. “This stuff is undrinkable.”
He grinned. “You’re right.”
Joanna slid down the bed until she sat next to him. “I don’t need coffee anyway,” she said. “I’m feeling quite wide awake.”
“Joanna, we’ve got to—”
She put her fingers on his mouth. “Sssh.” The rush of his breath against her fingers made her nearly moan with desire. “Carter, let’s not talk anymore, okay?”
“Okay.” He was almost shivering in the warm room.
Joanna kissed him, and Carter drew her against him, and she felt her heart pounding within her and Carter’s thundering in his chest. They lay back onto the bed, crosswise, fully clothed, kissing, tasting, exploring, discovering, and then they undressed each other, layer by layer, and came upon the intimate pale surprise of each other’s body. They were not adolescents; they did not hurry, but spent the deep hours of the night getting to know one another. When finally they joined together, breast to breast, skin to skin, they discovered to their mutual delight that they were as well suited for each other in pleasure as they were at work.
Joanna sat alone in her office as daylight left the sky, remembering this past year, a period of rich, intense, demanding, rewarding work and love. She thought she had everything. Why was it that now as she sat in her office she felt she had nothing?
Three
A sharp knock sounded at the office door, startling Joanna out of her reverie.
Sung Chu, one of CVN’s custodians, pushed the door open and peeked in. “Oh. Sorry, Ms. Jones. I’ll come back later.”
“No, no, it’s all right,” Joanna said, swinging her feet down from her desk. “I’m just leaving, Sung. Come on in.” Sliding her feet into her shoes, she glanced around her desk, searching for whatever needed to be dealt with urgently. Folders and cassettes and notes and letters filled her various baskets, but none tempted her. It could all wait.
Sung wheeled in his vacuum cleaner and cart, and Joanna exchanged pleasantries with him as she gathered up her purse and left her office. Gloria’s reception area, the long corridor and sleek elevator, seemed unusually empty and quiet, even for this time of day—it was already eight o’clock. Stepping out into the muggy August air, Joanna felt suddenly lonely in the vast sparkling city. She looked up at the sky, which seemed far away and pale with lingering light. As she waited at the curb for a cab, she watched a young couple stroll by, the woman in a sleeveless summer dress nearly entwined like a vine around a lanky, blissful-eyed young man.
She caught a cab to West Seventy-fifth, stopped at a deli for a sandwich and cold drink to take home with her, and headed for her apartment.
“Good evening, Ms. Jones.”
“Good evening.” Joanna smiled at the uniformed man who held the door open for her; he was a temp, filling in while Luigi, the permanent doorman, was on vacation with his family.
Everyone in the world was on vacation with his family.
Her apartment was stuffy; the air-conditioning was unreliable in this building. Joanna slipped into a T-shirt and shorts, then went around her apartment, opening windows to the humid night. Sinking onto her bed, she flicked on the TV and spread her sandwich out before her on the bed, using the paper bag as a plate.
Nothing on television held her attention. After a few bites of the sandwich, her hunger disappeared, and she sat cross-legged on her bed in the muggy summer night feeling edgy and discontented until she realized with a jolt that what she really was feeling, for the first time in a long time, was lonely.
Over the past year while she and Carter had been lovers, their work and their lovemaking had intertwined into a profoundly engrossing whole, and Joanna had felt richly satisfied. Carter spent five nights a week at Joanna’s apartment; it had been his custom for a long time to spend those nights in the city during the workweek. He had his own telephone line installed at Joanna’s; he and Blair spoke every night. When Carter called Blair or Chip from Joanna’s bedroom to chat with his son about his braces or a ball game or with his wife about an invitation they’d received to a charity benefit or other scheduling conflicts, Joanna simply went into the bathroom and took a shower, letting the water drown out the sounds of his voice, or into the living room to sort through the boxes of files and materials for the books she was planning to write. Thus she gave Carter privacy and insulated herself from the reality of his marriage.
Oh, there were occasions when she got into a maudlin, overwrought snit of obsession about Carter’s loyalties to Blair, but mostly she didn’t have time for self-pity or regret—she was busy working at what she loved best with the man she loved. The truth was that Carter was with her more hours of the week than absent. His weekends in Westchester with his family gave her time to lunch with her friends or catch up on her sleep or shopping.
Tory, her best friend, constantly advised Joanna to make a clean break with Carter and find someone else, an unmarried man. But Joanna had no illusions about that. She knew that interesting available men were rare, and furthermore, as she’d ascended in the world of television until she had found her niche here in the starry pinnacle, she understood that more and more men were becoming off limits to her, or would think they were, because she was so successful, and slightly famous, and even a little respected, as well as financially independent. The problem of time also entered in: she lived for her work; few men would be able to accommodate a woman with so little free time or emotional energy.
What she knew of Blair also encouraged Joanna to believe that what she had with Carter was real love, complete and significant, while it was only the facade he shared with Blair. Joanna had met Blair at occasional network parties over the years. She’d been impressed. Blair was beautiful, small-boned, her heart-shaped face framed by a bell of glossy chestnut hair. She moved slowly, as if to an inner music. She was so serene. Joanna could understand how Blair provided the perfect refuge for a man like Carter, who spent most of his life in a network scramble of hurry, hassles, arguments, split-second expensive decisions, noise, furor, disasters, personalities, intrigue. In a perverse way it pleased Joanna that Blair was so lovely; Joanna liked competition and would always prefer to compete with a worthy adversary.
Another source of gratification and even, she’d admit, of a petty pleasure was the fact that Joanna would never in a million years have shown Blair Amberson’s residence on Fabulous Homes.
The summer after Joanna and Carter became lovers, she had the opportunity to see the Ambersons’ home in Westchester when they held a posh lawn party for the network. Joanna had gone with Tory and Tory’s husband, John, a network lawyer. The day had been perfectly sunny, and the French doors were open from the house to the garden where an enormous blue-and-white-striped tent had been set up. Tables of drinks and delicacies were set up around the turquoise swimming pool, on the lawn, as well as throughout the house. With a flute of Mumm’s in hand, Joanna wandered around, smiling, chatting, and secretly observing with an eagle eye.
The style of the house—French provincial—was not Joanna’s favorite. However, the pristine atmosphere was impressive. Each room, like Blair herself, was beautiful, perfect in its proportions, and unutterably calm. No clutter. No frills. No fuss.
That day she’d even seen the bedroom where her lover slept with his wife.
People drifted in and out, upstairs and down, to look at the beautiful house. Joanna decided she needed to use the lavatory on the second floor, and then she walked down the spacious hall and stood just outside the master bedroom, looking in.
She would have gone through Blair’s closet and drawers if she could have, but of course she didn’t dare, not with all the people coming and going. But where was it? she wondered, the clue, the key, to Blair’s soul? The house, master bedroom included, was as tidy and impersonal as a television ad. Luxurious, yes, but bland. Even sterile.
“What you see is what you get
.” A voice came from over her shoulder.
“Tory! You startled me.”
“I thought I’d find you up here snooping around.” She sauntered into the room.
“I’m not snooping. I had to use the bathroom and I just passed—”
“I’ve told you, and you wouldn’t believe me. Believe me now? Blair’s as deep as lipstick.”
“She must have something more. Carter married her.”
“She’s beautiful. No denying that. Has money of her own, and that probably mattered when they were young. She knows how to present the facade. Blair has nothing beneath the facade. The scary part is, she knows it, and likes it that way.”
Joanna had turned away from the bedroom, with a glad heart. She and Carter shared so much: passion, an enthusiasm for their work, triumph when shows went well, network gossip, challenging ideas. If all he shared with Blair was this shell of a house, perhaps he should leave her and make a permanent home with Joanna.
Then she’d passed by an open bedroom door. A boy’s room, baseball posters on the walls, bats, balls, and mitts on the bedspread, a love-mauled stuffed bear tucked against the pillow. Chip. Blair would name her son Chip. Still, the room evoked a person, with desires and dreams—and needs, needs for a whole family, an available father. Joanna did not want to be responsible for taking a father away from a child, not ever. She’d gone silently back down the stairs, into the sunny day. She’d gone smiling, back into the midst of the party.
She’d never asked Carter to leave Blair. She’d never even really wanted him to. Why should she? Her life was full of work and friends and travel and exhaustion as well as his very satisfying love. She was proud of her self-sufficiency.
But on this lovely August evening Joanna didn’t want to be self-sufficient. Summer light lingered in the sky and summer sounds drifted up from the streets. Laughter. Singing. The whir and click of roller blades; the excited tap of high heels.
